By Scott Baughman
Relief workers and merchants from Chimney Rock Village were joined by visiting celebrities on Dec. 14 in a community effort to raise funds for the village’s continued recovery from the devastation of Hurricane Helene.
Visitors were encouraged to donate to the relief efforts by scanning a special QR code or visiting a website to raise funds for the village – which still has all businesses closed to the public and has a staggering 100% unemployment rate.
Turnout was huge, organizers said, with visitors waiting multiple hours in lines that wrapped around the building at the Lake Lure Ingles grocery store location trying to catch a shuttle bus to the gathering space in front of Lake Lure Inn. From there, visitors were able to get tickets for another bus to take a tour of the village itself. But due to safety concerns, no one was allowed off the bus as areas of the village were still too unstable for foot traffic or visitors.
“Five Christian organizations worked together to help with the activity to help with recovery,” said Daniel Cline, CEO of Catalyst Conference, one of the ministries working on relief efforts. “Spokes of Hope and 180 Disaster Relief were the major skilled labor disaster regroups to help rebuild. Several relief groups also came to deliver supplies.”
Cline was on hand to discuss and explain the disaster relief efforts as well as to work with City Serve, another group working with the Christmas fundraiser. The aid groups were assisted by Amazon and CostCo and other corporate donations. WorldVision also had volunteers and leadership on hand. These groups adopted Chimney Rock to help in a disaster they have estimated is 5 times as bad as Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
“Mayor Peter O’Leary and the village council are in charge of where the money will be spent so that local concerns are paramount,” Cline added. “About 1,800 volunteers have been able to clean it up and knock down houses and rebuild. It will not be what it once was. Some places saw mud that was 6 feet deep. Even today the merchants are not able to sell and no stores are able to open.”
The fundraising event also saw a special performance by Jonathan Cain from Journey who debuted a new song dedicated to the victims of Hurricane Helene. Additionally, there were guest appearances by NASCAR Xfinity Champion, Cole Custer and Xfinity driver, Stefan Parsons.
“I arrived six weeks ago and my parents are mountain people,” Cline said. “I have a love for the mountains. And when you look at it you cry. Then you meet the people and you cry harder and just pray and ask God to give you strength to get through it and help. We plan to be here until we can get things as close to normal as possible. There are so many church groups that like to use this area for retreats and conferences and we are trying to remind them that soon they can still do that to help the businesses in the area.”
Estimates place the amount of donated funds and goods above $10 Million.
One displaced merchant, Bruce Godzik, said he and his wife hope to rebuild their coffee shop – and village fixture – Coffee on the Rocks. But the prospect was looking bleak.
“We hope to rebuild. We had just spent a bunch of money rebuilding the deck before the storm came,” Godzik said. But he added that at this point he was grateful the family escaped with their lives.
“I got my wife out just in time,” Godzik said, recalling that they packed some things and drove away shortly before the coffee shop and their home underneath it were washed away, utterly destroyed by the flooding. “Our cat did not survive, sadly.”
Godzik said the business had been working with FEMA and working on getting loans through the Small Business Association.
“We had insurance but it won’t cover anything because it was a flood,” he explained. “I’ve been burning through my savings and I may have to get a job somewhere in the new year until we decide and figure out if we can rebuild. I knew today was going to be big but we have seen a huge crowd. Lots of folks are here from S.C. and some drove four hours to get here.”
Godzik said he was still awaiting word as to whether his property would be viable to build upon or if he would have to donate it to the village as greenspace.
